maybe tuesdays aren't so bad after all
by atlasky
Summary: "What are you going to do? Do a series about superheroes' daily lives? Iron Man doing laundry. No, wait. I'm not even sure Stark does his own laundry." He pauses and looks at her then, eyes wide and horrified with realization. "Please tell me I didn't just give you an idea." (Natasha & photography. It's not as messy as you think.)


**Disclaimer:** Do not own.

 **Author's note:** I'm having a terrible case of writer's block with my other stories + prompts, so uh, here's something I was able to muster. Apparently I'm in the headspace for fluff, which I can't understand why because I really am unable to write it properly. So here's something fluffy-ish. I hope. Third part of the 'Like waking up to a Sunday morning' series but can be read as a stand-alone. This universe is really expanding beyond what I had intended. Leave a comment?

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 **maybe tuesdays aren't so bad after all**

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She notices the thing at the bottom of his closet, tucked away amongst boxes of old art supplies and suspicious boxes that have Stark's signature on them. She didn't mean to, because she was just trying to find somewhere to store the empty containers of cat toys in their (she doesn't think she will ever get used to calling it that: _theirs_ ) apartment when she found it. Simba (yes, she chose that as the cat's name because _Lion King_ was the first movie she watched when she had just defected from the Red Room, curled up on Clint's ratty couch and glaring daggers at the leaking ceiling above them) has been making a habit of finding a place to hide in and she definitely lacks the patience to look for the _fat creature_ everywhere.

It's unopened and looks every bit as if it hasn't been touched, and she thinks she would have remembered it if he had gotten the thing when she was around. But then again. There was a period of time when she hadn't been around all the time. She ignores the guilty pang of her conscience that always happens whenever she remembers the four years they spent apart, but it really had been what they needed at that time and she doesn't regret it. Much.

"What is this?" She asks him, and he looks up from the latest novel that he's reading. She has lost track of what it is because he burns through books just as fast as Clint – except Steve actually _reads_ the books and doesn't open the last page right away. She squints. It's _Gone Girl_. She's not surprised. He's into reading mysteries lately, ever since Sam managed to rope him into binge-watching both _Sherlock_ and _Elementary_ a few weeks ago.

"Oh," he says, staring at the box in her hands, as if he just remembered that he owns it. "Sam got me that. He said it's good for—" His face twists slightly, the subtle way he always does whenever he's talking about circumstances around his well-being. It's not shame, because he's not ashamed of needing help to be able to wrap his head around the ice and everything that happened in DC, rather it is reluctance to discuss it and to bring it to the center of their attention— because even until now, he still doesn't like to burden people with what he considers to be his personal problem.

Sometimes she can still see him, standing in the room with the others with disbelief on his face, as if he can't grasp the concept that _here_ , _these people are your friends and we would like your permission to meddle through your problems in the most annoying and obnoxious way possible because you matter to us_ , before he would quickly shake it off and continue doing whatever he's doing. There's nothing that she can do but to link her arm through his and make a joke at Stark's expense, then. His grateful smile always tells her that he understands what she's trying to say.

"—helping me ground myself, I suppose. But it was…," he grimaces. "It was too much for me. I wasn't in a very good place then. Besides, I didn't know what I would take pictures of and I wasn't exactly in the mood to learn digital photography from scratch."

She weighs the camera box in her hands. It's light. She speaks before she even thinks to. "Mind if I use it?"

The edge of his lips quirk into one of his familiar, warm smile and she has a weird but not-so-farfetched feeling that he has known what she was about to ask all along. "Go ahead. Just don't tell Sam you found it abandoned in my closet, would you?"

"Why, Rogers. I make no such promises."

" _Natasha_."

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She recognizes the brand of the camera. She has used it frequently during undercover and surveillance works, but she has never used it to actually photograph something for other purposes. Come to think of it, she doesn't think she has ever taken pictures for _personal reasons_. The exceptions are probably the occasional disposable cameras she would buy sometimes, during what the others have dubbed as her own 'Julia Roberts journey', and even then she would only take pictures of things she thought Steve would find interesting, despite of not giving the actual pictures to him until just a mere few months ago.

It was inconvenient for someone like her, who had relied so much on being able to disappear without a single trace. And pictures had been just that: traces. Traces and unimportant attachments. There's a reason her previous apartment had almost no furniture in it. But now, when everything about her is already out in the open anyway, floating around the internet and the empty air, gossiped by people eating Friday brunch or bad nachos in Time Square, and when she had just bought a new carpet that matches Steve's worn out drapes, she can find no reason not to learn photography properly. She needs something to fill her spare time. Life has been slow lately. Which is good. It's a refreshing pace, even when sometimes her fingers itch for something to do and she would end up at the shooting range or the gym anyway. And to add to that, she has more time to waste with Steve. Which is _absolutely fine_.

The camera is a standard digital slr one, and its rim is brown. It's pretty decent, and Sam has already included a couple of additional lenses with it. One for long distance, and the other one for macro photography. It's a shame that Steve has never used it, but she supposes it's understandable, because different from her, the last seventy years ( _or_ the last few years, depending on your stance on that scholarly debate) of his life have been spent under the spotlight. For him, they're mostly just reminder of the things he lost. He draws though, and when he does the sketches are personal, intimate, and _alive_. They're much better than any pictures she had seen of his past, the ones in the history books or in the museums.

"It's the concept of it," she says to Clint, who is scowling at her for being dragged off so early in the morning. There is a cup of coffee in his right hand and he is wearing an oversized hoodie on top of his entire I-don't-want-to-be-here demeanor. She has managed to trick him into accompanying her photo-hunting to one of the market that opens up early here in New York. There's a huge chance it might have involved blackmail.

"Which is what, exactly? And why can't you just ask Rogers to do this? I thought I'm already free of this the second you decided to date Captain America."

"That maybe it's time for me to start making memories instead of chasing them," she says, as she takes a picture of a stack of apples because – isn't that the kind of thing most people do? "And he had to pull an all-nighter last night; he has an art project due for tomorrow."

Clint is silent, and it's the kind of silence she knows, one where he'll be watching you with things running around in his mind, quietly assessing until he figures out the proper way to say what he wants to say in order to get the point to actually stick. "The thing is, 'Tash," but there's a different weight to his words and she looks up from her (Steve's. _Theirs_? You know what - they'll work it out) camera. He's not smiling, still stuck in that half-pissed state as a result of being pried away from his comfortable bed, but his gaze is full of the kind of affection only he can convey. "You already are."

She bites back a smile at that and bumps her shoulder to his as a silent response. He yawns. "Now stop taking pictures of pointless things and start making sure I'm not wasting my time."

"Barton," she says, calmly. "Do remember that you're being blackmailed."

Clint narrows his eyes at her.

She takes a picture of him, sneezing into his coffee with his nose red and dark circles from consecutive marathon of _Dog Cops_ he would never admit under his eyes. It's the best picture she has taken all morning.

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She has her feet up in the air and her head hanging from the edge of the bed, her hair almost brushing the floor. Simba is curled up on the stool near the window - tail swishing back and forth as he watches the street below, when Steve enters.

"What are you doing?" He asks her, amused. "Is this another kind of your weird yoga thing?"

She has noticed, curiously – that Steve has endless patience whenever it comes to her. Don't get her wrong, because they do still have their occasional disagreements which usually end up with him gathering her in his arms and her pretending his tactic doesn't work when both of them know it does, but he's terribly patient with her, putting up with all her quirks and silly demands without a complain.

It's not that she's testing him – no. They are way past that stage now, when her curiosity would win over or when her self-preservation instinct would try its damnest to push him away before he could be the one leaving. He never did leave, though. Would only smile knowingly at her and glue himself even more stubbornly by her side. Had everything in DC never happened, she definitely would never have left either.

All in all, she's fully aware that she is not someone who people can easily keep up with. Few people can. But with Steve, he takes it all in a stride even when sometimes things do leave him baffled.

 _You said you wanted to learn how to knit; I got some books from the library that might help you_.

 _I don't know why on earth you would want to have a pet cobra, and I'm sure it wouldn't get along well with Simba, but we can look into it if you want_. (Of course she's joking, _Steve_.)

She reaches out for him with one hand and he gives a fake sigh of exasperation. He gets on the bed and she rolls over, instinctively tucking her head under his chin and settling comfortably by his warmth. His fingers draw patterns on her bare shoulder absentmindedly. She has – to her absolute, utter horror, grown a fondness of _cuddling_ and she is blaming him for all of it. It's definitely his fault.

"I missed you," he murmurs, and it's saying something that him saying things like this still sends bursts of warmth through her chest.

"What," she says, flatly but huskily. "I didn't even go anywhere."

He shrugs and presses his lips to the crown of her head. "That doesn't mean I can't miss you."

"Oh," she says. "Why do you keep saying such corny things?"

"You love it," he smirks, gently drawing circles with his thumb now.

He is soothing to her senses, always calming her in a way that nobody else can quite grasp. It's weird. He's weird. She's not exactly normal either. They're not normal, but at least they're normal enough in the scale of their messed up life. Plus, they don't exactly care about normalcy and silly platitudes.

He's—

Staring at her with a knowing look. "Okay," he says, drawing himself back slightly to stare at her a bit more properly. "What's on your mind right now?"

She wets her lips with her tongue and tries her damnest to push away the urge to give him a smart comeback rather than telling the truth. It's true that since her years away after the events in DC she now has better control in letting people in into her life, but sometimes it still feels really difficult. It's unfair to him though, when he's working his best trying to deal with his issues and hers at the same time. She has to try too. She could do that, for him.

"I left you," she says, and watches the surprise flit across his face. "Why did you forgive me?"

He's quiet for a moment. She knows that his initial response would be brushing it off, telling her that it doesn't matter, but this is also something he has to work on (at least that's what Sam thinks), talking about things close to his heart. (Basically they have to do a lot of talking. It's tiresome—but somehow it's also liberating at the same time. Again, it's really annoying). "Why are you asking about that now?" He asks, inching a little closer to press their foreheads together. "It's in the past, Nat."

"Honest answer time, Rogers," she replies, feeling his breath ghosting against her cheeks. "No backing out."

He sighs and gives her a rueful look. He knows that he has to, they have an agreement. They're trying to make this work, whatever this is. They're not going to do that with lack of communication. Granted, they don't really need it since somehow they understand each other and are able to read each other with an eerie level of perceptiveness, but they agreed that it's probably for the best. They failed on communication the first time around and look where it got them. Nowhere they're interested in visiting all over again.

"Because you were right," he says. "It was what you needed to do and I wasn't also in the best place, was I? I was a mess—well, worse than I am now." He chuckles again and she smiles faintly through the churning in her stomach. Still so noble and forgiving, after everything. The same person she, the person she— "If we were together then we would have been in ruins."

A retort is poised perfectly on her tongue but she swallows it down and tries to search for the right words. "I stand by my decision," she says, once she has found the right string of sentences. Saying things straight from her heart like this is way more difficult for her than being left with a single gun in the middle of a terrorist nest. He's patient though, waiting until she's ready. "Leaving for me was the right thing to do. But don't you think I was being a little too much? _Cutting off all contact for four years_?"

"You were," he agrees, nodding slightly. "At this modern day and age when one text message would suffice? Terrible, Romanoff." He takes a deep breath with that wry attempt at a joke but she says nothing because he isn't done speaking. "Yeah, I was hurt, but you already said sorry. Also, we both agreed that you were being stupid. What else is there to forgive?"

"I'm sorry," she says again, because she needs to say it and because she's sure she hasn't apologized enough already.

"I know," he says. He doesn't say _it's fine; it's okay_ —because they both know it wasn't and doing so would be lying. He also knows exactly what she needed to hear.

"For what it's worth," she says finally, suddenly awfully flustered, hoping he would get what she couldn't say. "You're my mess."

He looks at her then, blue eyes bright, shining with mirth and _something else_ , and laughs. "Romanoff, ever so romantic."

She shrugs and hides her smile on his shoulder. They both have the rest of the day to spare.

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He takes her on a drive around the city. It's something they haven't done in a while and she doesn't realize how giddy she was until he points it out. She has her camera in a small backpack and Steve has his leather jacket on. They're both sitting at the park bench with an ice cream cup between them.

"What's the phrase?" he asks. "Is it: you're awfully chipper today?"

"Must be the weather," she replies, as she eyes him up and down. And he must have got it, because a blush creeps up his neck and he rolls his eyes. He _does_ look incredibly good in those clothes.

"Shut up," he says, still flushed red. Then his gaze catches the camera protruding from her bag. "Let me look at the pictures you took. I haven't seen them."

She reaches into her bag and passes the camera to him. He turns it on, holding the plastic ice cream spoon between his teeth as he does so, and starts browsing through the array of pictures she has there. It has only been a few weeks since she picked up the camera for the first time, but she has quite a few pictures in it already. She hasn't left the camera at home even once. She has found that as much as she likes taking pictures of people, taking pictures of sceneries or objects relaxes her more.

"Nat," Steve says, not even glancing at her as he busies himself with staring at the three different angles she had photographed a leaf. He sounds excited. "These are _great_."

She squints. It's just a leaf on a pavement. Clint had glowered at her the whole time she crouched down on the sidewalk to take those pictures. "I'm pretty sure you have the obligation to say so because it's me."

He frowns and scrolls through more pictures. "I'm serious. You never told me you're really good at this."

She wouldn't know. Photographing a target never needed aesthetic choices. The target would be dead in a matter of moments anyway. "You should have known," she jokes. "I'm good at everything."

He laughs, and he's looking at her with that look again, the one that makes her squirm internally and oddly light and warm at the same time. "You're right. I should have known."

"Give me that," she tells him, after she scoped some more chocolate ice cream into her mouth. "I want to take a picture of the ice cream."

He hands her the camera back and watches as she tampers with the settings. "I think there's a photography contest at my college opening up in a few weeks," he says. "You should join, Nat. Might be fun."

"Hmmm," she says, humoring him without actually thinking about it. "Maybe." She's not going to, and she knows it. She thinks to some extent he knows it too. Saying an outright no would just make him more persistent though, so she has learned to navigate around him, sometimes. His lips tilt in a line that tells her he's aware of what she's trying to do but is letting it slide. "Now stand over there while I take a picture of you looking at the distance."

"Oh my god," he says, yet he stares off at the distance and follows her instructions with minimum resistance, laughing all the while and more than once staring at her incredulously whenever she suggests some really corny poses. In another life, he really could make some money out of modeling. Not that she's going to say it out loud. Some moments are meant to be hers.

Like his smile, she thinks. And the way he blinks himself awake in the morning.

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Steve is _extremely_ persistent when he wants to be, and sneaky at that too. (To be honest both are definitely nothing new). Because the next thing she knows, he already registered her at the contest and is unfazed when she glares daggers at him. "It's worth a try," he prompts, sliding the plate of breakfast pancake with maple syrup and a cup of coffee just the way she likes it. The bastard even puts blueberries on his bribery. She glares harder. He doesn't even blink. She wonders where Simba is when she needs him. She knows the cat hates Steve. And practically anyone who isn't her. To be honest, she kind of adores the feline more for that. And oh look—

Steve is taking out a batch of hash browns from the oven, watching her with a feigned innocent look from the corner of his eyes as he puts two of them on his plate. They're golden colored but slightly burnt, again, just the way she likes it. She hates him so much sometimes.

"Fine," she bites out through gritted teeth. "Just give me the damn hash browns already."

He grins.

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Clint laughs a little bit too loud when she tells him about what Steve did. She suspects his hearing aid is not yet properly tuned after yesterday's explosion at the mission downtown.

"Classic," he says, snorting into his pizza slice while she stretches herself further on his ratty couch, some foreign movie about clown assassins on hire that Bishop left at his apartment playing on the TV. Natasha thinks the young Hawkeye meant it to be funny. It's sad that Clint enjoys such non quality entertainment. "What are you going to do? Do a series about superheroes' daily lives? Iron Man doing laundry. No, wait. I'm not even sure Stark does his own laundry." He pauses and looks at her then, eyes wide and horrified with realization. "Please tell me I didn't just give you an idea."

As an answer, she turns up the TV volume.

In fact, he just did.

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She already has a picture of Clint. She also already owns countless pictures of Steve—candids, the both of them together, or just the plain ones where she straightforwardly told him to pose. Choosing one wouldn't be too hard. She just needs a couple other pictures to submit.

Is it cheating to compete by participating with what she knows to be amongst the most wanted pictures in the world right now? The answer is definitely no. She makes her own way, she always has. Besides, nothing in the guideline says she couldn't. Steve double checked. (Because she doesn't care enough to look at the guidelines and has insisted to his doubtful self that she's _allowed_ ).

The next few pictures she takes, she just happens to have her camera within reach during those moments. She takes a picture of Pepper with her heels kicked off underneath the table, poised as always but is smiling affectionately at Tony who's babbling about something none of them understands to Bruce. She takes a picture of Sam and Rhodey, just after they finished from their latest training session, both still in their gears, yet they're holding a beer in their hands, laughing. She takes a picture of Jane, just after the other woman got off the stage after receiving an award for her latest research, her trophy in hand as Thor embraces her, beaming proudly and her grinning happily.

All in all, she thinks they are pretty good pictures even when they're not in black and white.

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She comes home two weeks before the deadline of the contest to Steve hunched on the dining table, unmoving with his back tense. He was supposed to pick the photos she had printed out from the photo lab today.

"Steve?"

He still doesn't move and she sidesteps her way to his side. He's gripping a picture between his hands so hard the edges crinkle. It's a picture of the both of them when they went to the Times Square yesterday with Sam. She hasn't even got a chance to look at it properly before. He releases a breath he has been holding and wordlessly offers the picture to her when she lays a hand on his back tenderly.

She takes it from his fingers and holds it in front of her eyes. She immediately sees what he saw. _Oh_. There's a glint of metal, in between the faraway crowds, hidden unless you're looking for it—more specifically, a glint from a metal arm. Of course she's familiar with it. She has seen it countless times. She has seen the Winter Soldier's metal arm countless times, has even studied it up close whenever he let her back in her Red Room days.

James. Bucky. James Buchanan Barnes. The Winter Soldier. All of them the same person. The Winter Soldier trained her. He was also her only friend. It's still hard to reconcile the fact that James is the same person with Bucky Barnes, Steve's best friend with the wide reckless grin. "Are you going to look for him?" This is his first sighting in five months. And with such a close proximity to them.

"No," he says, and his response is immediate. He looks up and gives her a feeble attempt at a smile. Steve has never pried for any details, about her and James. She doesn't know why it frustrates and relieves her at the same time. That's a chapter in her life that she's not sure they should delve into yet. She would— she would tell him. In time.

She steps closer and he presses his face into her stomach, sighing softly. She lifts a hand and runs it through his messy hair. Had it been who he was before everything, and not who he is right now, they would have a fight about this with him insisting on chasing after James right away. But he is not who he was, so they stay there in the silence until Simba comes to nudge her leg, and Steve laughs lightly, and she makes hot chocolate for the both of them.

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They're leaning against the pillar at the far side of the room, watching as Steve is being surrounded by one relentless reporter after another. Stark expos only get bigger each year.

"You know," Sam says. "I've never asked you this despite everything we have been through. Did you find the answers you need?"

She ponders this for a moment. "Maybe," she says. She did, in some ways. She also didn't, in a lot of other ways. Maybe she found peace, but peace is relative, and she thinks there are a couple of things she can't walk away from. Right now though, she's where right she needs to be.

Sam is still watching her. "Is that good enough?"

This time she doesn't hesitate to answer. "Yes."

Sam huffs out a laugh. "Come on," he says. "I think your boy needs some rescuing and it sure as hell ain't gonna be me."

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In the end, she doesn't submit the pictures she originally chose.

In the end, she buys an empty picture album with a black cover and puts the Avengers' pictures in it. There are always lines between the hearts, and for her this might just be it. She remembers Clint's steady presence, Pepper's resilience at anything that comes knocking on her door, Tony's odd way of caring, Bruce's calmness in the storm, Jane's excitement about little things, Thor's wisdom, Sam's understanding about things she's sure other people wouldn't understand, and Rhodey's dependable insights. She remembers blue eyes, mornings with a kiss to her temple, and afternoons with easy laughters.

She thinks some part of her has known since the beginning that she would never follow through. These are the things she would really like to be able to hold dear, after all. The things she would strictly label as hers and fight tooth and nail to defend. It's what's important, isn't it?

Having a purpose?

Instead she submits a few landscape pictures and a couple candids of strangers she met on the street. When the result comes out a month later, she doesn't win, but that's okay because Steve wraps his arm around her and tells her how proud he is, the others spare their time to visit the exhibition just to see her photos despite of how busy they are, and Clint actually wears a suit just for her.

They go out for Thai food after and get Tony to pay for everything.

She truly, honestly, doesn't care whether she wins or loses.

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When they get home, the door creaks open. When they get home, they find that the blinds are closed and there is soft music playing in the background. When they get home, they find the Winter Soldier sitting on their couch with his eyes closed, sleeping. When they get home, they find James and Bucky, with Simba curled up on his lap, also napping.

Steve's breath hitches and he stops dead on his track besides her.

Had she been the person she was, not the person she is, she would have thrown the knife that she had strapped inside her boots without a second thought. Had she been the person she was, not the person she is, her reaction wouldn't have been this: She takes a picture.

James wakes up.

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 **End.**

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End file.
